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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23136145">The Authority's No Good, Very Gotham Day</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/LordJaketheWarrior/pseuds/LordJaketheWarrior'>LordJaketheWarrior</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Batgirl (Comics), Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types, Stormwatch (Comics), The Authority, WildStorm</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Gen, M/M</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-03-14</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-03-14</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-01 08:20:30</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>898</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/23136145</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/LordJaketheWarrior/pseuds/LordJaketheWarrior</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Due to Shenanigans, the Authority go to Gotham. It doesn't end well.<br/>Just a one-shot for now, because my brain wouldn't let go of the question 'But what if Cass and Midnighter fought?'</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Apollo/Midnighter</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>5</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>50</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>The Authority's No Good, Very Gotham Day</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>"Bloody fucking Bats! Stupid fucking Pennyworth! Fucking fucking <em>fuck</em>!"</p>
<p>Apollo looked at Jenny with interest, then leaned over to Shen.</p>
<p>"Should we be concerned?" he whispered.</p>
<p>"About Jenny?" Shen shrugged "Probably. About the mission? Maybe. In general? Definitely." she looked up at Angela, who was currently playing a game of keep-away with three of the mini-Bats - honestly Shen had slept through the briefing and there were too many of them to count, but one of them was distinctly Grifter-esque, all bad boy from the nineties and edgy shitheel from the noughties, whilst the other two were variations on the same theme of 'fire hydrant with vomit on it' - the elder was typing at a holographic screen, talking a mile a minute the way Angie did when she was hacking, whilst the younger was brandishing a sword and looking very put out that it kept bouncing off Angie's armour.</p>
<p>At the very least Jack was having fun. The main Bat was known to get very protective about 'his' city - especially when metahumans were concerned - but, as it turned out, being a metahuman with a psychic relationship with the city you were currently in bordering on the symbiotic equaled you knowing more about it than someone who had vigilanted here for decades now. Shen didn't need to be one of the most powerful wizards on the planet to know that Jack's ducking and weaving was really starting to tick the Bat off.</p>
<p>That left one member of their group missing, and Shen leaned over to Apollo again. "Where's your darker half?"</p>
<p>Apollo looked over the skirmish and frowned, putting a hand to his communicator.</p>
<p>"Honeybuns? You okay?" he asked, and Shen hid a grin. For about a month Apollo had been coming up with more and more saccharine phrases to call Midnighter, and Midnighter in turn had been coming up with more dramatic ways to express feigned displeasure. Everyone else thought it was adorable, and bets were currently ongoing into how long it'd take the two lovebirds to realise the strategically placed magazines of pet-names were entirely intentional.</p>
<p>Midnighter did not respond, which caused Apollo to frown in that concerned way of his and gently float up to get a better vantage point. Shen knew Jenny would rile on him for that later - Apollo's reserves were running dry and sunlight was a rarity in Gotham - but she also knew that it wouldn't matter to Apollo in the least.</p>
<p>When Apollo had reached about ten feet, he stopped and sighed in relief, opening the comms again. "Sweetcorn, stop staring at the girl and respond." There was no reply, and Apollo frowned again, looking at the two black figures in the alleyway. "Sugarplum?" he ventured hesitantly.</p>
<p>"Can you not, dear?" Midnighter's voice rang clear across the comm and Apollo sighed again. "I'm in the middle of a fight here."</p>
<p>Apollo frowned again, looking intently at the two opposites. "But… you're just standing there."</p>
<p>"Yeah," Midnighter grated, disconnecting his comm "that's the fight."</p>
<p>He kept his eyes fixed on the shadow. Unlike Shen, he had stayed awake through the briefing, and so he knew with confidence that very little was known about the new Batgirl. She was literally a shadow, appearing to people in need and vanishing with a few words of comfort. Certain people theorised she was the previous Batgirl come back in a new cape, or even a Rule 63 (whatever <em>that</em> was, <em>Christ</em> he was old) version of the Big Bad Bat himself, but that was bullshit because there was no way the previous Batgirl or even the Batman was capable of <em>this</em>.</p>
<p>Ever since Bendix had taken him and used him and experimented on him, he'd been aware of a difference in how he saw the world. Call it processing speed, call it precognition, call it whatever you fucking wanted, but he could see a thousand variations on a single moment, a million ways to influence things to his advantage. He often boasted of winning a fight before it even started, and that was true. Well, it was true for most cases. Not this.</p>
<p>He ran a scenario in his head, a simple misdirection with a left hook followed by a knee to the stomach, and without pause the scenario changed, what was once a perfect misdirection turned into a perfect judo-flip and he was on the ground. In reality, he had barely moved a muscle, and neither had the girl, but what little they had moved spoke wonders.</p>
<p>He knew <em>how</em> she was doing it, of course. He had figured that out after the first thousand scenarios. Whenever he committed to a scenario, he moved slightly, almost imperceptibly, to prepare for the execution. Despite his superhuman reflexes, the girl picked up on those movements, and moved her own body to accommodate, and his brain picked up on <em>those</em> movements, which led to what was the most effective scenario being dropped to the lowest, which led to him picking the new most effective, or second most, or whatever most, and the whole shitty cycle began again. The two of them were at a stalemate, and given time they could be like this forever. But he didn't have time, and he was distinctly aware that the Batgirl knew it too.</p>
<p>Because despite her mask hiding all her face, he was pretty sure that the little shit was <em>smirking</em> at him.</p>
<p> </p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>This is why I shouldn't get ideas at one in the morning. Also, please note that I haven't read all of the Authority or anything like that, so if I've got anything seriously wrong about Midnighter's dealio then feel free to tell me.<br/>With that said, traditional appendix-y things:</p>
<p>The Authority: I'm going with a grotesque amalgamation of different versions of the Authority here, mainly drawing from the Ellis run on the first one (because that's all I've read, because Mark Millar licks goats) and their appearance in The Wild Storm (probably more that than the former, because its been a while). For those uninitiated, the team is made up of:<br/>Jenny Sparks: the leader of the team, the very British spirit of the twentieth century, about a hundred and twenty years old and feels it, may or may not have fucked Alfred at some point in the sixties.<br/>Shen Li-Min: also known as Swift or The Doctor (no, not that one), chosen by various supernatural forces to be one of the most powerful wizards in the world.<br/>Angela Spica: aka The Engineer, the science to Shen's magic, adept at most forms of technology, decided that implanting an Iron Man suit inside her body was a good idea so not good at common sense.<br/>Jack Hawksmoor: A metahuman (possibly) whose body is uniquely suited to living in cities, fresh air literally kills him. Please also note that Jenny, Shen, Angie and Jack have all slept together at one point, and may or may not be dating.<br/>Apollo: Gay Superman, a solar powered cinnamon roll who can also coincidentally murder an entire fleet of aliens in two seconds.<br/>Midnighter: Explicitly not Gay Batman, because Warren Ellis said Gay Batman is just actual Batman, because Warren Ellis is awesome. May or may not have a computer in his head. Once identified Dick Grayson by his ass. Genuinely one of my favourite characters.<br/>Bendix: Henry Bendix, once-time leader of the UN intervention group Stormwatch, same-time employer of Jenny, Jack and Shen until it turned out that when he said 'make the world a better place' he actually meant 'put ME in charge', at which point Jenny threw him at a Superman expy because he's a bald egomainiac, of course he's analogous to Lex Luthor. Later turns out to have created his own Ersatz Justice League, including Apollo and Midnighter in the Superman-Batman roles but with either more or less kissing depending who you ask. Said team did spectacularly in that they were all killed on their first mission except for Apollo and Midnighter, at which point Bendix decided that 90s antiheroes was the way to go and formed Stormwatch.<br/>Grifter: Another Wildstorm character, this one from the other titular team WildCATS. Honestly I know him mostly from the Nu52, where he's basically Captain Scarlet but the Mysterons are a race called the Daemonites. Admit it, you're curious now. Also he wears a red face-covering mask with black and white eyes, so you can see why Shen thinks of him when she sees Red Hood.</p>
<p>Hope you enjoyed, feel free to comment and tell me what you think!</p></blockquote></div></div>
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